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Empty Toners Can Now be Turned Into commercial outdoor paints
(Auckland, New Zealand)WAYNE GRIEVE has a mission: he wants to recycle every last piece of the thousands of waste printer toner cartridges his company, Toner Recycling (TRC), collects.
But, being a private for-profit business, he wanted to find a way that was also commercially viable.
Grieve was almost there. The plastic recycling was easy as was the metal, but the waste toner simply had no use. And that was a significant problem as every month TRC sends 50,000 used toner cartridges from 14,000 national collection points around the country. That’s enough to fill 1000 1-litre milk bottles.
"Finding a path for the waste toner was the missing piece of the jigsaw," said Grieve.
A project with Downer EDI and the Ministry of the Environment had found that toner could be included in roading material, but it had no value there.
Then, through word-of-mouth, he made a connection with another local company, Otaki- based Enviropaints, that has led to what both believe to be a world first use for waste toner – in commercial and outdoor paints: TRC and Enviropaints shared their technical expertise to create specialised paint which provides a viable revenue stream for waste toner extracted from used printer cartridges.
Grieve said the first stage of that was to send toner to Enviropaints’ lab. There it was found the toner is polymer-based and therefore suitable for use in paints.
Waste toner is a mix of all colours, and to the human eye is predominantly grey. The next stage for TRC was a change in process, where the toner was extracted from the cartridges by colour, rather than in bulk, for shipment to Enviropaints.
"Finding a viable path was significant for us," said Grieve. "We don’t put ourselves up as a ‘zero to landfill’ recycler, but what goes in is less than half of 1 per cent."
Following a six-month trial, the first re-created specialised paint incorporating the toner was produced at Enviropaints’ Otaki plant. The paint, which Grieve describes as "outdoor commercial" can be used for a range of applications, including buildings, fencing and covering over graffiti.
"It has been fantastic to work with Enviropaints, which has the technical expertise and vision to think outside the square and produce quality paints incorporating all kinds of materials which would otherwise go to landfill," Grieve said.
TRC operates cartridge collection and recycling schemes on behalf of printer manufacturers Ricoh, Canon, Brother, Konica Minolta and Sharp.
Enviropaints general manager Peter Reid said the inclusion of waste toner adds another component to the company’s products, which are re-created from recycled paint, and a variety of recycled oxides, pigments, solvents, resins and emulsions.
"This is an exciting innovation. It wasn’t an easy process to perfect, so it was a matter of coming up with the secret formula using our innovative technology to achieve the right results.
"We are able to use the various toner colours to their maximum advantage, and have achieved our goal of creating a new-life paint through innovation. This of course has definite cost savings on our raw material, resulting in a sharper price to the end user without affecting the quality."
Reid said the fact toner is suitable is tremendously helpful as it is very hard to get reusable black pigment. A lot of work went into perfecting the process behind the products and he may look at patenting the technology after further development.
It isn’t just about paint either. Reid said Enviropaints is "well down the road" to extend the use of toner into other areas.Enviropaints is a zero waste company, Reid said. All of the pallets, wrapping and containers used to transport toner to Otaki are recycled."Nothing goes to landfill," he said.
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